Hops in buckets

Alright I know, it's not a perfect situation, but I bought my rhizomes from my lhbs (cascade, nugget, willamette) and I've got them in pots as of yesterday.

Planted them with a potting mix and have watered them twice so far. I have no idea how much I should water them or use fertilizer etc. I'm planning on transplanting them to my parents house in a month or so.

Anybody got some wisdom for a newbie? How do I not kill these damn things...

Better to go light than heavy. You just want to make sure that they don't dry out. Overwatering probably causes the majority of the problems when folks are just starting out. Good luck!

make sure your soil drains well and that the water has somewhere to drain to (i.e. make sure your pot has holes in the bottom so excess water can drain out, as opposed to pooling at the bottom of the contained and drowning the roots).

got to a hardware store's gardening center, buy a general-purpose fertilizer (something like a 6-6-6, 8-10-8 or anything with three relatively similar numbers), read the instructions, and fertilize lightly. over-fertilizing is not a good thing, better to go light.

when moving the hops from your pot to their permanent home, try your best to not disturb the roots and the dirt around them. in practical terms this means preserving in place as much of the soil as possible. the ideal transfer would maintain all the soil against the roots/rhizome, although in practice some will invariably be lost. put some compost or manure in the hole before adding the hop (and it's "soil-ball") on top.

Thanks guys, I'm definitely erring on the side of too light with watering as I'm scared to death of them rotting.

I bought some 10-10-10 fertilizer but I'd really rather use something organic or natural such as seaweed, compost or manure.

i wouldn't be afraid of artificial fertilizers. it's the pure form of the same things the plants would get from manure, compost, etc. research has shown that plants are indifferent where they get their N-P-K from.

manure/compost/etc is superior for other reasons (soil structure, slow release, pH, micronutrients, etc) so go with that if you've got it. but there is no reason IMO to fear the 10-10-10.

one thing with manure/compost/etc is that it is best if mixed into the soil. artificial fertilizers have the advantage that you can apply them at the surface or to the water, and they will make their way down to the roots much more efficiently than organic matter at the surface.